Hit Bit
I’ve been wearing a Nike Fuelband for almost two years now, and I think to this point it’s served me mostly as a wristwatch. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a huge proponent of wearable tech. The Fuelband is just not one of the better fitness bands out there, and I find myself holding out for whatever Apple ends up offering in the smart watch department. Time will tell.
Fitness data
I probably wasn’t very clear in my previous post, but I do value the data I’ve received from my FuelBand, even if it is kind of an arbitrary metric Nike uses. I feel sorta married to that data because I’ve diligently worn the device every day and have enough of a dataset to make assessments about progress or lost progress. It’s another major reason why I haven’t jumped ship for a Fitbit or Pebble with Runkeeper.
I’ve also noticed that any time there is a technical hiccup with the hardware, it pretty much ruins the entirety of my data. I lost my FuelBand for an entire month (somebody thankfully found it at work and tracked me down), and it brought down my entire average. After that, I felt sorta reticent to it all motivationally. It’s still need to be able to look back over an entire year or two’s worth of data and sorta be able to decipher what was happening then and why I was so active.
I see huge spikes in March during SXSW and any time I go into training for a race. So, that’s… something.
Tracked
I have very mixed feelings about fitness trackers and the data they collect even though I am right this second wearing a Fitbit Force on my left wrist that I bought after Christmas. I even wrote a whole article about my ambivalence. It’s nice getting paid to express your confusion.
I haven’t lost any weight or gained that much sleep, but I am at least aware of how little progress is being made on either front. It’s comforting, in a way.
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